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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28326198">hard as iron, like a stone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomlistener/pseuds/phantomlistener'>phantomlistener</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sapphire and Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Darkness, Gen, Minor Character Death, Putting things right, Telepathy, Time Shenanigans, Vague Explorations of Telepathy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:36:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,793</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28326198</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomlistener/pseuds/phantomlistener</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sapphire and Steel arrive in a house that's frozen in time - but nothing is ever that straightforward.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sapphire &amp; Steel (S&amp;S)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide Madness 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hard as iron, like a stone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/gifts">Lyrstzha</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">“Something's wrong here,” Sapphire said, almost exactly as they materialised in an empty room.</p><p class="western">It was freezing cold, tenuous fingers of frost inching their way across the faded wallpaper, and the fireplace was filled with tiny lumps of charred coal and ashes that stirred in the draft from the chimney, the warmth of a banked hearthfire no more than a memory in its exposed stone. The clock above the fireplace wasn't ticking, its face completely frosted over. Even the light was cold, reflected blue and white through thin windows from the snow outside.</p><p class="western">But through the frosted windows the grass was a vibrant green, bordered with flower beds of overflowing colour and shining bright in the sunlight. Tiny birds darted from branch to branch of the tall oak, and their beaks moved in song, their chirping and trilling close enough that it should have easily been heard through the single-paned windows, but wasn't: the room was eerily silent.</p><p class="western">Steel looked around keenly, taking in the surroundings with a swift and practised eye as Sapphire reached out and touched the walls with one elegant hand.</p><p class="western">“You're right,” he said curtly. “What year is it, Sapphire?”</p><p class="western">Sapphire closed her eyes. “Inside...1942. Winter. January the fifteenth.”</p><p class="western">“And outside?”</p><p class="western">“I...don't know.” She opened her eyes. “There's nobody here.”</p><p class="western">Steel moved silently across the room, one hand brushing a light covering of frost onto the floor as he trailed curious fingers along the length of the table. He stopped in front of a small double bed in the far corner, covered with a patchwork blanket that had once been vibrant and bright but was now pale and threadbare, ice-tinted.</p><p class="western">
  <em>Sapphire? </em>
  <span>His voice was silent as the birdsong, but Sapphire heard it nonetheless. </span>
  <em>Look at this.</em>
</p><p class="western">Her fingers skimmed across the blanket. <em>There was a woman.</em> She glanced around. <em>And a man.</em></p><p class="western">
  <em>Where are they now?</em>
</p><p class="western">Sapphire froze, gasped, and bowed her head, and Steel turned to look at her. <em>So much grief. So young, so afraid...oh, Steel....</em></p><p class="western">"What happened?” he asked out loud, calm and sure in the silence.</p><p class="western">“They died, Steel, they <em>died</em>, and there's so much...I can't....” She shook herself and stood straight. “It's too intense.”</p><p class="western">“Can you tell how time was stopped?”</p><p class="western">“No. All I can feel is grief.”</p><p class="western">“Two people dead. Perhaps....”</p><p class="western">“Perhaps.” Sapphire turned and placed both hands on the window, and outside the sun played gently across leaves that danced in an invisible breeze. “But Steel...the more I look at it, the more wrong it feels.”</p><p class="western">“What?”</p><p class="western">“Outside. I think outside is frozen as well, in a different time.”</p><p class="western">Steel reached around her, put his hands either side of hers. “So we're frozen in time in a place where time has already stopped at a different point,” he said into her ear. “Doesn't that strike you as odd, even for Time?”</p><p class="western">“It doesn't make sense.” She turned between his arms, close enough to kiss. “We need to know what happened here.”</p><p class="western">“Agreed. Can you take time back inside?”</p><p class="western">“No. Time's on a loop of an hour's length. I can only take it back within that hour.”</p><p class="western">Steel frowned, and his gaze flickered from her out to the garden. “And out there?”</p><p class="western">“I'd need to be out there to be sure. I can't affect anything from here – we're separated from it by some sort of barrier.”</p><p class="western">“Hmph.”</p><p class="western">There was a definite tone of annoyance in his voice and Sapphire sighed, resigned. “It's not my fault, Steel. You can't blame me for the limitations Time imposes on my abilities.”</p><p class="western">“I suppose not.” The frost was thawing where his hands touched the window, dripping onto his wrists, and when he moved there were two flawlessly formed handprints, translucent against the opaque white that covered the rest of the glass. “What <em>can</em> you do?”</p><p class="western">Her eyes met his, fearless. “With my special abilities? Nothing beyond the superficial. But just seeing what happened in here might give us the answers we need.”</p><p class="western">Steel turned abruptly away, frustration visible, his eyes scanning the cold room as if he could make it give up its secrets by sheer force of will or stubbornness. “Do you know <em>why</em> Time is frozen like this?”</p><p class="western">“A trap, maybe. Or a prison.”</p><p class="western">“And yet you say there's nothing here?”</p><p class="western">“Not at the moment.” She glanced briefly over at the empty cot. “But we are at the very end of the time-loop; it might have already happened.”</p><p class="western">“Take time back, Sapphire.”</p><p class="western">She held his gaze for a moment, her face solemn, then walked over to the door and positioned herself so she could see the whole room at a glance. “I need you to stand behind me, Steel.”</p><p class="western">He obeyed silently.</p><p class="western">“Now...” she whispered, and the air filled with a throbbing power. For one suspended moment, nothing happened. And then the room was suddenly black as pitch, the windows looking out into darkness where the garden had been, and an even icier chill emanated from the frosty walls. Sapphire inhaled sharply and stepped back to make contact with her partner, her back against his chest. “Don't let me fall, Steel,” she whispered, her words half-eaten by the darkness. “Don't let go.”</p><p class="western">His hands fell on her shoulders in response and she leaned into him. “There's something-”</p><p class="western">A figure coalesced out of the darkness.</p><p class="western">“-here,” Sapphire breathed softly. “Steel-”</p><p class="western">“It's okay,” he whispered, but his words were swallowed by the aching void in front of them, silenced as soon as they tripped from his tongue. He squeezed her shoulder in silent reassurance.</p><p class="western">The woman began to scream. In the darkness behind her another figure emerged, a man this time, skeletal and haggard. Time dripped from his fingertips, and tears fell from his eyes, and the woman was still screaming, a howl of loss and anguish and pain that rang frighteningly loud in the deadened atmosphere of the room. Sapphire tried to reach for her, but Steel's hands tightened on her shoulders. “No!”</p><p class="western">“She's hurting, Steel.”</p><p class="western">“She's <em>not real</em>,” he hissed, his voice harsh. “You told me not to let you fall.”</p><p class="western">Her fingers stretched out towards the woman, almost blending into the darkness, before she dropped her arm and watched, immobile, as she faded away.</p><p class="western"><em>Thank you.</em> The light was back, and with it Sapphire's strength.</p><p class="western">Steel was well aware that sometimes Sapphire needed to be grounded in one time. The solidity of his body against hers was on such earthing, and he spoke out loud to provide another, drawing her back to the present and to reality. “What was that?”</p><p class="western">To his relief, she responded in kind. “They...Steel, I think they're the source of the grief.”</p><p class="western">He quirked an eyebrow. “You thought otherwise?”</p><p class="western">“I thought there must have been a survivor - a mother, a daughter, a partner. But perhaps it was just the two of them, alone here at the end of it all.”</p><p class="western">“Then what do we do?”</p><p class="western">“I don't know.” Sapphire frowned at her partner. “And don't give me that look, Steel, I can't <em>always</em> have the answers for you, you know.”</p><p class="western">He glared at her. “It <em>is </em>your job.”</p><p class="western">“It's yours as well.”</p><p class="western">Steel almost retorted, but something caught his eye. “Sapphire. The garden.”</p><p class="western">The vibrance of the grass and flowers had taken on a sepia tone, leeched of warmth. A woman was sitting on the swing, bare feet pushing herself gently back and forth in a soothing rocking motion, and she was smiling, her curled hair loose around her shoulders and dancing in a soft halo around her head in what must have been a summer breeze.</p><p class="western">Sapphire gasped. She moved to the window, rested one hand on its cold surface and watched through the fog of her own breath.</p><p class="western">There was a man behind her, suddenly there where before there had been no-one, and he was pushing her higher on the swing, and she was laughing, dark hair flying around her face. Higher and higher she went, and she leaned her head back, closed her eyes against the rush of the air and the rush of blood in her veins, and then two things happened at once, superimposed as if someone had taken a photo and the camera film had gotten stuck, taken another over the same picture.</p><p class="western">
  <em>The branch broke and she fell, fell from the height of her swing and landed in a heap on the grass, her neck at an impossible angle--</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>The branch didn't break and she swung back down in a perfect arc, trailed her feet on the grass at the bottom to slow her speed, and the swing calmed to a standstill--</em>
</p><p class="western">There was a sudden blur, and the double image resolved itself into one, the crumpled figure on the grass gone and in her place a living, breathing, smiling woman, standing up from the swing and throwing her arms around the man's neck in an exhilarated embrace.</p><p class="western">Sapphire shivered, put her right hand next to her left against the windowpane. “...oh. <em>Oh</em>.”</p><p class="western">There was a terrible knowing in her voice, and Steel lifted a hand to her shoulder. <em>Sapphire?</em></p><p class="western">She opened their link to encompass everything she was feeling, every single impression she was receiving from the scene, and they saw the scene simultaneously, identically, a flash of not-real (<em>should-be-real</em><span>) – her dead body on the grass, the man leaning over it, screaming pain and grief and shock beneath a summer sky.</span> <em>Do you understand?</em></p><p class="western">“Not a trap,” Steel said dispassionately, the solid reality of his voice anchoring them back in the here-and-now. “Not a prison.”</p><p class="western">Sapphire shook her head. “More...a <em>mistake</em><span>.” She looked away from the scene outside, gaze passing over the empty room without really seeing it. “I can sense Time's meddling outside. Nothing inside.” </span></p><p class="western">“Then there are two triggers.”</p><p class="western">“One deliberate,” said Sapphire, stepping closer to her companion with a shiver, “and one accidental. What happened in here was so terrible that it created its own event, after Time had already interfered.”</p><p class="western">“Time misjudged its strategy.” There was a strange note of triumph in his voice, vicious and pleased, and he reached for Sapphire's hand. “It left a way out.”</p><p class="western">“A bridge to the outside,” Sapphire agreed. “We can make sure that things happen as they should.” She closed her eyes, and again the air pulsed with invisible power.</p><p class="western">And then they were gone.</p><p class="western">Outside, the image flickered. A woman--</p><p class="western">
  <em>swinging high on a swing, trailing her feet in the grass as she reached the bottom of the curve-- </em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>falling from the topmost point and landing in a crumpled heap in the sunshine-- </em>
</p><p class="western">And then the image settled on the second picture, and the frost disappeared from the walls of the room, and the clock on the mantelpiece began to tick once more.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Lyrstzha, I loved your prompts about Sapphire and Steel's telepathy and fleshing out a few of the cryptic hints that canon gives us about their relationship, but I think I ended up just being cryptic myself, so this has ended up in Madness as a bonus hopefully-still-relevant gift for you! Happy Yuletide!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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